[ 2014-07-19 ]

Parliament debates mid-year review of 2014 Budget
Accra, July 18, GNA - Parliament has begun a
debate on the mid-year review of the 2014 Budget
presented on Wednesday by Mr Seth Terkper,
Minister of Finance.
The Majority in Parliament noted that the mid-year
review reflected the efforts of the Government to
accelerate the development of the nation, but the
Minority said Government’s request for more than
three billion dollars was indication of a weak
economy.

In his contribution, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, Minister
Designate for Employment and Labour Relations, and
Member of Parliament (MP) for Tamale South, was
optimistic that the economy would bounce back
because Government was putting in place pragmatic
measures.

He said though the performance of industry had not
been the best due to erratic power supply, the
intervention measures being pursued by the
Government would help address the problem.

To help alleviate poverty, the Government, he
said, intended using part of the US$1.5billion
Chinese loan to support the Youth Enterprise
Development Fund.

Mr Iddrisu said development partners had not been
fair to the Government in terms of the
disbursement of support to help the economy.

Mr Abdul-Rashid Hassan Pelpuo, Minister of State
and MP for Wa Central, said the Government should
be commended for boldly confronting the challenges
in the economy other than the NPP that failed to
confront the challenges and took the country to
HIPC.

Mr Kwaku Kwarteng, MP for Obuasi West and Member
of the Finance Committee, noted that the
strategies by the Government to address the
challenges in the economy were old recycled
measures.

He said the Minister of Finance only provided
Ghanaians with bad news.

“Mr Speaker, the summary of all these is that
the economy is much more troubled than the
government imagined at the time the minister
presented strategies for us to approve. So,
obviously, those strategies have failed,” Mr
Kwarteng said.

Mr Kwarteng described as more shocking the
Government’s demand for a supplementary budget,
painting a gloomy picture.

He said the expectation of the economy to generate
jobs for the rest of the year would be much slower
than imagined with an expected decline in the
growth rate of goods and services.

That notwithstanding, the country is expected to
overspend her means by GH¢1.6billion with tax
revenue also expected to slump by 16.3 per cent
while the strength of the cedi against major
international trading currencies is also expected
to continue to fall.

Furthermore, Mr Kwarteng said interest payments
were also expected to rise because of the
Government’s continuous borrowing attitude from
both domestic and international markets.

He advised the Government to ensure that the rates
of corruption at some state institutions were
reduced to the barest minimum if not totally
eliminated.

This, he said, would save the country some money
to pursue developmental projects that would inure
to the benefit of her people.

Professor George Yaw Gyan-Baffour, MP for Wenchi,
said the three billion Ghanaian cedis
supplementary budget being pursued by the
Government was meaningless, explaining, “it will
not in any way improve the well-being of the
citizens of this country."

“Mr Speaker, it tells us that life is going to
be very difficult for Ghanaians. All the economic
indicators are trending in very dangerous
deficits. Our growth rate is projected to decline
from 8% to 7.1%, even with oil.

“If you take oil out, it will even drop to 6.6%
which implies that the almighty oil is only
growing at 0.5%. This is very disturbing. Prices
of goods and services will continue to increase by
the day.

Inflation, according to the Minister, will rise to
about 16% and government will continue to
overspend, increasing the budget deficit from 8.5%
to 8.8% despite all the claims of fiscal prudence
and Better Ghana. Mr Speaker, this supplementary
budget is a needless exercise,” he said.

Source - GNA

... go Back